mesmerized
by ember53608
Summary: her eyes are glowing like blue stars, piercing him all the way from flesh to bone, and the way her hair is bouncing around her face, rippling in little waves, glowing under the light of the living room chandelier? it has him mesmerized. [pre-epilogues.]


Soooo, I have not written for this fandom in _quite_ a while. But, alas, I am back! And hopefully not just for the one fic, although I think this is the longest one I've ever written for the fandom. It's certainly one of the best. ;)

But anyway, this is a late birthday present for fellow user bluepianos! She has some great fics lined up on her account that you should totally read, including two wonderful pieces about our favorite characters from Ferryport Landing–so go check her out! And of course, once you've read, if you'd be so kind, please leave a review! Those make my day more than anything!

* * *

Two years into his travels with Jake Grimm, Puck is left wondering what on earth his favorite pair of sisters might be doing without him. He and his blonde partner-in-crime stroll through the streets of Copenhagen, and the fairy prince stares in deep thought at the sky, envisioning a tempered Sabrina and bored-out-of-her-mind Daphne Grimm. The picture is amusing to him, but because he doesn't quite know how much truth there is to the hunch, he turns to Jake and says rather candidly:

"I'm going back."

Jake turns his eyes away from the map he is currently trying to decipher. The two of them are supposed to be searching for a magic mirror of some sort, if Puck can remember correctly, but their ability to find the thing depends entirely on how well either of them can understand Danish and their skills in mountain climbing, and he's positively certain that they lack in both. "I'm sorry, what?" says the older man, looking confused.

"I said I was going back, to Ferryport Landing. I need to see if everything is still in disorder." Upon a pointed look from Jake, he adds, "I promise I won't be long. Just a few hours." Puck fiddles around with the pockets of his new sweatshirt– _enchanted_ sweatshirt, to be specific–before withdrawing a long and crooked wand. He taps it against his finger a few times, then twirls it in the air in front of him, unfazed by the multitude of Danish pedestrians surrounding him. "You know where to go," he whispers, and with another swish-and-flick, he leaves his partner-in-crime to stumble through cobblestone streets alone.

The wand is not entirely accurate in pinpointing the Grimm household, but it blinks Puck close enough into existence that he can make out the lopsided roof just past the tops of his old forest's evergreens. With a forceful push, he spreads out his wings from his back and takes off for the fields, where he's sure to catch a sign of some Grimm or other. It's Sunday and two in the afternoon: prime time for the odds-and-ends cases that the family is prone to receiving.

"Oy, marshmallow!" he calls, glimpsing Daphne's signature braids immediately upon landing. The ten-year-old girl whirls at the sound of her name and shrieks at the sight of her friend. She tackles him hard, and as he ruffles her hair with one free hand, he uses the other to tuck his wand back. Sabrina is nowhere to be found, lost to the parts of the property he hasn't touched yet. Daphne starts to ramble about all that has happened in his two years' absence, but he distractedly cuts her off, "So, where is the pigface?"

Before the brunette has a chance to answer, Puck continues, "Hiding from me, are you, Grimm?" He sets off to search the rest of the fields that surround the house. Although she's accepted her role as a Grimm and an Everafter, Sabrina, he knows, is never kept cooped up anywhere for long, and especially not if he isn't there to torment her at every minute of the day. As he marches to the back of the house, Daphne interjects, "Puck?"

It takes him a moment to respond. There are trees planted on one side of the house that weren't there before, and he peers suspiciously into the branches, expecting the blonde to jump out at him and stake her long-awaited revenge. "Mm", he answers vaguely, focused on parting the branches with care. He's by no means a stranger to cuts and bruises, but it's been a while since his skin was this perfect, and he'd prefer to keep it unmarred.

Daphne looks up at him from the ground. A small, knowing smile curls its way up her lips. "I don't think you should go up there," she says, but Puck gives no answer, too far up to have caught her words. As a large shadow falls onto the leaves in front of him, he stills his breath and pulls himself back against the trunk. He can hear a voice–scratch that, _voices_ –above him. Sabrina's is definitely mingled in there somewhere.

Puck lifts his head to catch a better look of the unaware tree climbers, but as he focuses his gaze on what he's deemed to be a pair, his breath hitches in his throat. Sabrina's signature fop of blonde hair hangs tauntingly above him, tickling the arm of someone he doesn't recognize. "It sure is nice up here," says the owner, whose voice is sickeningly masculine.

"Yeah," Sabrina replies, "it's a good place to hide from the weirdos." This elicits a laugh from stranger boy. Puck bites down on his lip and looks back to the ground, where Daphne, though barely visible, still manages to catch his eye. She shrugs at him helplessly, lips still curled in a sympathetic smile.

"Tell the old lady I said 'hello', alright, marshmallow?" As Puck touches down to the ground with a light flutter, he takes the time to ruffle Daphne's hair once more. The brunette looks up at him hopefully. "Why don't you tell her yourself?" she asks, but he's already started to withdraw his wand from his pocket. Blissfully unaware of Puck's presence, Sabrina and her friend remain tucked away in the branches, engrossed in marveling about the view of Ferryport Landing from their perch.

Puck taps and waves his wand as before. Magical sparks bloom from the tip, and as his person starts to fade from view, he turns to Daphne and tries to keep a straight face. "I'm not in the mood", he offers. The ten-year-old pouts briefly but ends their conversation with a friendly wave. There is enough of him still left in Ferryport Landing to make a nod of acknowledgement, so without another word, the fairy prince finds himself ending his surprise visit home in less than an hour.

Amazingly, the wand pinpoints him just above Jake's head. As the adult swerves left to avoid Puck's body, he asks curiously, "Back so soon?" Puck falls to the ground with an irritated grunt, face dragging against frosted cobblestone. Nothing about his surroundings has changed except for the sector of the village that they're in, and the streets remain crowded with just as many ignorant passersby.

Puck picks himself up off the ground and dusts the snow off his t-shirt. With another moody grunt, he snatches the map from Jake's hands and starts to skim through the Danish at a lightning fast speed. They are nowhere near where they need to be, in fact, they're walking in the opposite direction. "What can I say?" answers Puck nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders. He takes Jake by the arm and spins him roughly the other way, to which the magic savvy replies with an equally immature shove. Puck immerses himself in the world of Danish landmarks, fighting off any thought of Sabrina or her male companion.

"Nothing's changed.," he mutters. "Not a single, darned thing."

{…}

Two, in retrospect, seems like a good number. After all, he and Jake make quite the pair, they send back a postcard every other month, and most sites they visit result in two enchanted artifacts rather than one. (Most gizmos, they discover, are incapable of working on their own.) And Puck has never been one for the number three; not after centuries of threesome-filled experiences with other Everafters.

All in all, he decides that two is a good enough number that his fourth year away from Ferryport Landing warrants a second surprise visit. The overwhelming humidity of India's western shores isn't treating his hair well as it stands, and if he wants to show off the fact that half of his head has been shaved of its luscious, golden locks–courtesy of Jake–he'll need for the sun to stop beating his hair into a watery pulp.

"I'm going again," he says one afternoon. Jake steps out of the shower with a Sleeping-Beauty-themed towel wrapped around his torso. "Where to?" he asks. Puck, busy with lacing up his combat boots, gestures with a flourish to the obnoxiously filled postcard that rests on their hotel room's dresser. It was his turn this month to write back, and given that their time in India thus far has been nothing but eventful, he made sure to fill the card all the way up to its margins. "I thought I'd deliver it personally," he replies, grinning cheekily as he withdraws his wand.

Jake raises his eyebrows and lets a small smile grace his lips. "Oh. Well, have a good time then."

"Will do." Puck salutes, gives his wand a couple of flicks, and disappears from the room. He isn't quite sure where the thing will drop him, given that this time he gave it specific mental instructions to get him as close to a certain blonde as possible. Who knows where she could be at this time of day–Saturday morning, just past eight o'clock–or who she could care to be with. Not that the chances of her being with a boy again are high or anything. It's just a possibility.

As the world of Ferryport Landing materializes around him, Puck does a quick check of his surroundings. The pungent smell of sea salt hits him like a wave, and with a wrinkle of his nose, he turns to face the town harbor and its myriad of boats, yachts, and ships galore. Too many residents and tourists to count make their way down the marina. Puck suppresses the will to sprout his wings and take to the sky, instead filtering through the endless crowd in hopes of finding Sabrina.

Why the blonde would even want to be here in the first place is a mystery to him. She's never really been a fan of crowds unless they involve her family, and even then, Sabrina has her requirements. Plus, the smell of the sea at the moment is nothing short of atrocious, and the presence of so many people only adds to its potency. Puck thinks he smells a diaper in need of changing not far from where he stands, so he shoves a few people and moves ahead a little faster.

It's almost an hour into his visit when he finally spots her. She's standing at a snow cone booth, leaning over the counter and making conversation with the vendor as he twirls syrup over her cone and one other. Puck takes a moment to admire her curves before walking in her direction. As she turns away from the booth with one cone in each hand, he lifts his hand and starts to wave, fluttering just a teeny bit so she can see him.

Unfortunately, someone else catches her eye first.

Puck watches in stunned silence as Sabrina makes a move to her left, smiling at whoever it is she's stretching out a snow cone to. The boy that walks up to her gingerly takes the cone from her hand before peppering her cheek with a kiss, and she responds with an eerily unfamiliar giggle. Sabrina slips her fingers into the spaces between the boy's, and without so much as a glance in Puck's direction, she heads off in search of either entertainment or amusement. Puck can't be sure, because the marina's shows and attractions both happen to be in the same general area.

He looks on after the couple for a while, waiting until they completely disappear from view, lost to roller coasters and vaudeville. Though a number of pedestrians send him a clear message that he's in the way, Puck finds himself unable to move. His gaze remains fixed on the spot where Sabrina's hair–waist length and tauntingly wavy–disappeared behind the persons of strangers. Any thought of showing off his punk rock hair has left him by this time, replaced instead with thoughts reflecting confusion, dejection, and anxiety.

"So blondie's got a boyfriend now, huh?" he mutters. He knows he shouldn't be bitter; it's not like they signed some sort of contract forbidding them from being with other people. He just thought that maybe it should've been a little harder to find someone else worth pining after. Especially since he's sure there isn't any other boy in Ferryport Landing quite as eccentric as him, nor any other girl across the world worth annoying more than Sabrina Grimm.

But hey–maybe he should start searching.

{…}

Eighteen comes quicker than he imagined.

Puck looks himself over in the mirror, tracing the outline of his abs and poking at his chest hair. He's by no means the definition of a Sports Illustrated poster boy, but the past six years of aging have certainly done his body some aesthetic good. Not to mention the piercings he's got to show for in his ears, nose, lips, and belly button. (What can he say? He's a fan of the things.)

Jake walks into the bathroom and raises an eyebrow, observing Puck's semi-chiseled figure for just the smallest of seconds. The boy has become more and more interested in his appearance over the past few years, and though Jake does have a hunch as to why, he doesn't dare voice it for fear of a tantrum filled with denial. Puck is, if not fragile, then highly touchy when it comes to any subject concerning Jake's niece. In fact, it's been a while since Jake last heard him say her name.

Which is why he tries to drop the envelope in his hands in front of Puck as nonchalantly and unnoticeably as possible.

"What's this?" says the fairy prince. Puck turns the envelope over in his hands, squinting at the elaborate cursive in which his name and Jake's is neatly penned. The handwriting is unfamiliar, but the return address isn't. _Ferryport Landing_ stands out to Puck more than anything, and he twists his lips into a suspicious frown.

"Open it," Jake replies, sticking his head out from the shower stall. He watches Puck intently as he opens the letter, waiting for any signs of surprise or discomfort. What lays inside the vanilla envelope is an invitation to attend one Sabrina Grimm's graduation, and in less than a week at that. Puck is sure to exhibit a mixture of emotions at the invitation, and though Jake has come to think of the fairy as something akin to a son, he still likes to see him suffer with trying to act human.

"I'm not going." Jake does a double-take as Puck swiftly exits the bathroom, shirt not in the tow. The (still) half-bald blond nearly slams the door behind him but manages to shut it gently at the last second. Alarmed, Jake attempts to re-clothe himself as quickly as possible and somehow mend the damage he's clearly inflicted. He grabs his phone from the counter and starts pushing buttons as he follows Puck out the door, all while hastily zipping the fly of his jeans.

Within a matter of seconds, Daphne Grimm's face appears on the screen in front of him. She waves at him excitedly, and Jake's eyes widen at the sight of all the rings adorning her fingers. "Hi, Uncle Jake!" she exclaims. "Did you get the invite?"

"Does 'Brina still have a boyfriend?" he asks, not even bothering to offer an introduction of his own. Daphne frowns, feigning hurt. "Uncle Jake," she sighs, "aren't there more important things to worry about?"

"Not if I'm gonna get this _punk"_ –he grabs Puck by the shoulder and shoves him down onto the bed–"to go to your sister's graduation." The growl that erupts from Puck's throat is enough to send Daphne into a somewhat-serious mode, and she adopts her most sympathetic smile before directing her phone away from her face. Puck's face sours as an all too familiar couple comes into view, their heads leaning together and their fingers intertwined.

"Keep it there, Daph," Jake says, before turning to Puck. The golden haired boy looks positively infuriated, fists clenched so hard that the skin around his knuckles is blanching white. He bites hard into his lip, attempting to ground all of his obvious anger and jealousy into the one motion. Jake holds him by the shoulder again and shakes, peering seriously into his eyes. "Now look at this," he says evenly. "Look at this for as long as you have to, and get _over_ yourself. Because I'll be _damned_ if you're not going to my niece's graduation."

And then he exits the room. Puck finds the phone being dropped into his fingers, and a still-present-but-not-visible Daphne says softly, "I'm here to talk if you want."

"Thank you, marshmallow." Puck continues to chew on his lip. He knows that Jake is watching him, either from the peephole in the door or through some enchanted thing of his. Fifteen minutes, though a long, long time, is what he decides on eventually. It's enough to satisfy Jake and dull down his irritation, and logically speaking, there isn't a lot that two people can do in fifteen minutes.

Or thirty. Or forty five. Or sixty.

"Puck… ?" Daphne asks meekly, speaking up for the first time in over an hour. She brings the phone back to her face and peers at him through the screen, appearing concerned. Puck doesn't hear her at first, still mulling over the thought of two people doing nothing but sitting next to each other, holding each other. Were he and Sabrina ever like that, even once? He can't remember.

"Yes, marshmallow?"

"Goodnight."

{…}

It's a spontaneous decision of Jake's that they go back once Puck turns twenty. Puck wracks his brain senseless trying to think of why twenty years is so special a milestone, but Jake gives him no more indication of his motives than a longing to see his family and hold his family and laugh with his family. There is still a faint trace of the devastated man from eight years ago that Puck can see every once in a while, but in recent years, it has started to fade, replaced instead with a man who tries to recreate the love of his life in all the little things.

"So, we're going to be permanent?" Puck asks, fingering his wand. Jake is fiddling with bags, gimmicks, and the like, checking every last nook and cranny of their Melbourne apartment for things that could be left behind. Particularly things that if left behind would result in devastating, hard-to-cover-up consequences.

"As permanent as your sweatshirt."

Puck twitches his nose in distaste, then starts going through his routine taps, swishes, and flicks, sparks erupting from his wand and lighting up the room about them. He isn't exactly sure where he wants to pinpoint them this time. He knows that his two prior experiences with trying to land somewhere near Sabrina were major failures that he'd prefer not to relive. That much is clear.

 _Elvis_ , he thinks. _No harm in that._

Jake pulls all of their things into his coat and under his arms before jerking his head with a nod. Drawing one last curve in the air, Puck feels his body start to slowly dematerialize. His legs go first, followed by his torso, his arms, his neck, his head. It's an overall surreal feeling, one that he's never quite gotten used to, even after having used the wand so many times to transport them all across the globe.

The first thing he senses under his feet is hardwood. As he opens his eyes, the blurred makings of what looks to be a living room gradually clear before him. Elvis's pants sound at his left ear, and with a yelp, Puck finds himself being pushed back into the family couch. The Great Dane licks up every part of his face, someone's sudden laughter doing nothing but further encouraging him.

Sabrina pulls Elvis away by the collar. She's beaming, amazingly, a smile stretched from ear to ear. Her eyes are glowing like blue stars, piercing him all the way from flesh to bone, and the way her hair is bouncing around her face, rippling in little waves, glowing under the light of the living room chandelier?

It has him mesmerized.

"Hey, pigface," she says, still laughing a little.

He doesn't know what to say, or how to speak, or how to breathe. There is dog slobber still coating his entire face, and all that he can seem to do is look at this bombshell blonde before him and stare while she lets a siren song slip from her mouth. Sabrina gives him a confused look and turns her head about nervously, her smile not leaving her face for a second. Puck shuts his eyes and swallows, wiping away what spit that he can with trembling fingers.

"Hey," he murmurs, muffling the word with his hands. She's still there when he opens his eyes, still smiling at him in that uncertain way, and all the anger that he's had boiling up inside of him for the past six years, all the desperation and the anxiety and the _want_ –it just _evaporates._

Because she's here. She's here and she's in front of him, and she may have a boyfriend who likes to knock her forehead or hold her hand, who likes to take her out to the marina and ride the ferris wheel, but for the moment, for _this_ moment, she isn't the girl who's in love with all that. She's just–Sabrina Grimm. The Everafter. The swords-maid. The stinkface. The Queen of Sneaks.

She's Sabrina Grimm,

and she's everything.


End file.
